The brand showed cherry, which is the proper colour to indicate due peeling and a successful mark.
In the meantime the marker was engaged in his work.

First, with a sharp knife he cut off slanting the upper quarter of one ear.

Then he nicked out a swallow-tail in the other.

The pieces he thrust into his pocket in order that at the completion of the work he could thus check the Cattleman's tally-board as to the number of calves branded.[3] The bull-dogger let go.

The calf sprang up, was appropriated and smelled over by his worried mother, and the two departed into the herd to talk it over.
It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is abroad as to the extreme cruelty of branding.